The Last and First Time
by untitled1494
Summary: There's a war going on. And it was only her there to fight it. He was gone. She had seen him for the last time." Ginny's thoughts as the War begins, as the war ends.


A/N _I've been dabbling with some Harry/Ginny stuff lately. It all sucks. So enjoy the best of the batch, and please please please PLEASE review._

* * *

The last time she saw him, panic was setting in, havoc was wreaking, and the world was changing rapidly. But through all of it, the last time she saw him, she knew what the moment meant.

The contrast had been painful. It had been such a beautiful scene: the last of the couples were leaving the gleaming gold dance floor, and the fluttery newly weds were sitting at a table by themselves, the calmed mood having bereft them of well wishers. There was Ron, looking rather proud of himself for once, walking past Viktor Krum with two butterbeers in his hands and a sneer on his face. There was Fred dancing with a veela cousin, who looked also to be having the time of her life. She remembered thinking, _please, not another veela in the family._ Everyone was smiling, everyone happy. The atmosphere in the cool air of the July night was light as a feather, lighter, even. Completely weightless. There she sat, at a table with Luna, not talking, just staring off at the different peoples of the wedding, at all the happiness. She thought then, _How is all this joy possible? How is it possible we can be so happy during such sad times? It seems to good to be true. _Later, she regretted thinking it, for she was right.

There was Hermione, a large smile on her face, rubbing her feet, talking to Harry, or whom she knew to be Harry. The chubby red headed boy had a look of utmost surprise, betrayal, _hurt _on his face. That's when things shifted. That's when she _knew _things were wrong. The contrast was painful. The silver lynx glided into the room and spoke. It announced the demise of good, the downfall of righteousness, or whatever was left of it. That was it. And Ginny Weasley knew what it meant. She knew it meant he'd be leaving. He'd have left eventually anyway, but now? Now when everything was so perfect? So falling apart? She needed him.

People were disappearing left and right, the whole assembly sounded of popcorn, it sounded of chaos, and it sounded of fear. People were running. Ginny was running. She had to find him, she had to stop him, somehow, anyhow. _Please_. She pushed and shoved through the crowding masses, tears flying rapidly behind her._ Don't go_. Was that a mask she just past to the left of? Why had the wedding gotten so cold? Surely, Death Eaters couldn't have appeared--she ran into one. A Death Eater: a being so cruel, so power hungry it would do anything to please its master. It would kill her without a second thought, and as he raised his wand to do so, she cursed him with the first thing that came to mind: namely, a bat-bogey hex.

She couldn't die here, today, she needed to find him, see him, stop him. _I need you here, now_.

There was Ron! He was running, surely, he was running towards Hermione, towards Harry. _Stay with me_. She followed behind him, though things were to crazy for him to know, for him to care. They pushed through Death Eater and wedding guest alike, until each of the youngest Weasleys had found their counter. Only, she would think later, he got to go with them.

Hermione and Harry (still embodied by the chubby muggle) were holding hands, her other was held out to Ron. Harry had a look about his face. A look of determination and courage. A look that said he'd face what was thrown at him, even if it meant danger, if it meant death, if it meant leaving his love behind. _Please_.

She wanted to shout to him, "Harry! Don't go!" though she knew he would. She wanted to convince him, "what can you do in this war, anyway? What difference will you make?" even though she knew the answer. She wanted to implore him, "what will I do without you?! How will I survive in this war? You're going to leave me here?" even though she knew she wasn't worth him staying, for at this point, it was her, or the rest of the wizarding community.

She wanted to beg him, "_please,_" but there wasn't even time for that. For as soon as she caught sight of them, they vanished. And though these thoughts rushed through the moment that felt like forever, the words simply wouldn't fit into the moment that in actuality was just that: a moment. A grain of sand on the beaches of chaos in the world, one star in a universe of moments, one tear in a world's history's worth of tears, which is near the amount that would soon fall from her own eyes.

She watched him vanish into space. He could be anywhere, now. Just not there, just not with Ginny. _Why? _She stood still for a few seconds, staring at the spot that he'd vanished in, and she was brought to her conscious by being knocked to the ground under Fred while a jet of green light soared over them

Oh, right, she thought. There's a war going on. And it was only her there to fight it. He was gone.

She had seen him for the last time.

* * *

The next time she saw him, she climbed through the portrait passage into the Room of Requirement, only to see the back of his gorgeously safe head, and when he'd turned she'd seen his messy black hair and his bright green eyes. Her stomach dropped. She had to restrain herself from running to him, from throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him and feeling him in her hands. _Touching _the life beneath them, the blood flowing, the heart beating, the chest falling and rising: the pure and simple life of him. She just wanted to feel it, to know it was true. But she couldn't, her eyes would have to provide proof enough. She smiled at him, and saw him smile back absently for a hair of a second before the deep frown of confusion and frustration returned and the crinkle in his forehead deepened.

And then there was a rushing gust of wind. The wind brought death and fear. It was a heavy wind, that took things with it. It took lives. The lives of Fred and Lupin and Tonks. The gust tore up Hogwarts, and it it tore up families, and it made everything blurry for a period. And then there was a voice:

"Harry Potter is dead," the voice said. The wind stopped, everything became as clear, as sharp as it ever would be. In fact, the world stopped as well. But if the world was stopped, why did the voice continue? "He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him." Now _that _certainly wasn't true. The voice was lying, about everything! The voice must be lying. "We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone." No. NO. _Lies!!! _

But it wasn't a lie. There he was, lying limp and lifeless in the grass of Hogwarts, the ground of him home. But Hogwarts was destroyed. Harry was destroyed. Ginny was destroyed.

She had been broken to pieces, and even though the joy of seeing him alive again, fighting, winning, had successfully assembled her back together again, the cracks were still visible. Those hair line seams that ran out of her heart alongside her veins would always be there, proof of her suffering.

* * *

When, finally, he was in her arms again, she relaxed. She felt his heart beat and she had her hand on his chest, she kissed the pulse in his neck, she witnessed the blood rush to his cheeks as he told her he loved her. When they spoke, she told him of her time without him: attending Hogwarts under the new ministry rules, recreating Dumbledore's Army, recruiting, rebelling; magically marking the walls, and sneaking first years out of detention, attempting to steal the sword, and writing letters to Harry that she'd never send. Being sent home: living under the viciously protective rule of her mother, waking up everyday with not only nothing to do but think of how much she missed him, seeing her galleon burn and returning to Hogwarts to fight, leaving the room of requirement and her fight until his psuedo-death, at which point in her recounting, she balked. She didn't want to continue.

So he spoke. Her told her everything that had happened. He told her of Grimmauld Place and of the Ministry, of his time camping: how he'd watch her on the Marauder's Map and hope she was safe, and willing her to know he was thinking of her. He told her of of the Horcruxes, of Godric's Hallow, their visit to the Lovegood's, of the Deathly Hallows, of Malfoy Manor, Shell Cottage, Gringotts, and of what _really _happened at Hogwarts that night. He paused on his walk through the castle. "And after I spoke to Neville, and I kept walking, I saw- I saw--" He looked down, tears forming in his eyes, slightly tinted by the light reflecting off of his irises. "I saw you. But I couldn't-- I couldn't-- I didn't want... to have to say goodbye." He continued to look down, ashamed, and she put her hands on either side of his face, lifting up his head.

"Good, because I wouldn't have let you go."

He continued on with his recount of the night, his walk to death, his death, his time in death, his return from death, his death announcement. "Hearing your voice has never, and will never hurt more." And finally, his victory over Tom Riddle, and his denouement: his chat with Dumbledore.

She listened intently to his story and as she heard him speak clearly, bravely, she felt she'd never understood him more, for this was him, wasn't it? His very core, revealed. She understood why he had to leave, and why she had to stay. She understood all of his choices, and all of his fears, and his love and faith and bravery.

And as he finished, she leaned her head on his chest, still content to hear his heart beat, and she felt she had seen him for the first time.


End file.
